


Becalmed

by Wecanhaveallthree



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 15:23:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21255524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wecanhaveallthree/pseuds/Wecanhaveallthree
Summary: Caught in a Warp-spun tempest, Cato Sicarius prepares to meet the Archenemy.





	Becalmed

‘They have breached the hull! They are here!’

And so they were.

The weakest beings of the Warp are the first to materialise, their substance more pliant, more mutable than those of their greater brethren. They required less obvious cracks in realspace to ooze through, pushing themselves out of bulkheads, crawling from the ruined bodies of squealing servitors, or simply cracking into being in a tangle of giddy laughter and serrated limbs.

**Free!** they trumpet from mouths thick with fangs, **Free!**

They are the first to slither into the materium as the overlapping Gellar fields of the _Emperor’s Will_ shatter in a cascade of muted screaming. They are the first to befoul the proud warship with their being.

They are the first to begin the slaughter.

They attack with whip-like tentacles, or with crude, corroded blades, or with spheres of ectoplasm, or a thousand more mundane weapons. They wade into the unprepared mortal crew of the _Emperor’s Will_ as berserkers breaking the surf on some bloody shore. Blood sprays metal, limbs are severed and flung in crimson arcs, and the screaming reaches a piercing crescendo of terror. With each wail of agony, of desperation, of pleading, the attackers grow in strength and size and numbers, the fissures between this world and next tore open by a spiritual earthquake of pain and suffering.

It shakes the warship on a fundamental, intrinsic level. Spasms that shake failing flesh. They are here, sure and certain as death. What can be done but surrender? Who could be strong enough to stand before the crazed might of the Warp unleashed?

He.

He rises like the sun. No - that does not do it justice. For a moment, he _is_ the sun, his cerulean artificer plate drinking in the weird light of the otherspace breaches and reflecting it back as pure, purged gold. The tendrils of the Immaterium shy back from the aura of crackling energy surrounding him, from the golden aquila above his primary heart.

Time means nothing to the frenzied dwellers of the Great Ocean. Some of those who board the _Emperor’s Will_ in their thronging horde remember well the father. Charges falter. Weapons drop for a moment. They remember, and they _fear_.

Behind the crested helm, the Second’s patrician features curl in a contemptuous sneer as he beholds the tide of filth lapping at his feet.

‘Death to the enemies of mankind,’ is his command.

The giants at his side obey at once.

Bolters venerated and ancient bark alongside freshly-consecrated designs from Mars, warriors new and old reacting instantly to their captain’s orders. The storm of fire is as unmerciful as it is devastating: mortal serfs and officers caught in the fusillade are destroyed as completely as the daemons they grapple with. The pale marble walls of the strategium are shattered by mass reactives, exposing the skeleton of steel beneath, washed with blood and stranger, more vital fluids.

Columns and collonades inscribed with valiant deeds and the names of fallen disintegrate, crater, explode -- centuries of history unwritten in a moment of overwhelming violence. If this affects the Second or his men, they give no obvious sign.

The smoke and chemicals are churned immediately into the cunningly-wrought filtration and cycling systems within the warship. They, at least, proved hardier than the Gellar generators.

‘Report,’ barks the Second on wideband vox, his auto-senses shifting through the garbled communications. Some are legitimate pleas for aid. Some are battle cants from his brothers. Some are mad gibbering. Some are deep graves of silence.

There is no pause to consider the information. He is already in motion. There is nothing wasted in the Second’s proud stride. Every movement, every action, calculated and weighted to inspire, to draw attention, while being simultaneously economical and lethal. He moves like an assassin’s blade through flesh. His approach is that of a dorsal fin towards drowning sailors. His steps are empire-heavy, ten thousand years old, inexorable and unstoppable. They echo through deck plating, through superstructure, through the Warp.

Nothing dares challenge that titan tread. Not when there is easier prey to be had. Not when the golden terror is so stark.

**Yes,** they whisper and nod to themselves, **Let him fade first, yes, then, then, then.**

‘Enginarium signalling catastrophic damage,’ reports the Second’s grizzled sergeant, his attention on the minutiae so that his liege can wage war unburdened. ‘Without the Gellar fields, we will be overrun.’

‘And without the Navigators, we’ll never break out of the Warp,’ counters one of the newborn Primaris, his Gravis plate fresh and unmarked. ‘We’ll die a slower death with the fields, aye, but a death all the same. We _must_ escape the Warp!’

‘What of the fleet?’

‘The message to push on went through.’

‘And how many heard? We have a duty! You Primaris do not see!’

There is a burr in the sergeant’s voice that gives the game away. A tremor. Not of fear - never that, for the greatest warriors of the Imperium are lessened in that regard, the feeling one of many shorn from them -- but of _excitement_. There is a green in his helm not produced by the lenses, like two burning emeralds.

‘See what?’ the Primaris asks, temper up, heedless of the danger in his question.

**’Everything,’** responds his immediate superior, ceramite breaking into long, lethal fangs.

The _Tempest Blade_ is a silvered blur, the adamantium afterimages sweeping through the sergeant’s gorget in a plume of atomised metals, skin, and bone. The particles cling to the weapon’s power field in a gritty halo for a moment as they are erased on a molecular level, shimmering out of existence like collapsing stars.

There is no final condemnation spat from the possessed. No parting taunt. There was not hate enough in the blow to fuel it: not enough energy to feed on. Starved of even the base element of surprise, the Neverborn dissipates back into its realm too quickly even for regret. The emeralds shatter soundlessly, their shards falling into the yawning darkness of the helm. It bounces once as it hits the decking, rolling to face away from its slayer.

‘Enough,’ says the Second. ‘If vile daemons seek a foe, then I, Knight Champion of Macragge, accept the challenge.’

Anger now coils around his words like smoke, dark and cloying. The unquiet predators of the Warp creep further back, the result of the unwary and reckless clear to see.

Their wariness only fuels the Second’s contempt. He turns his back on the shattered sergeant and strides towards the strategium’s great blast doors, the nine remaining honour guard falling in at his flanks. They form a single unit, each Marine protecting the blind spots of his closest brothers and protected by them in his turn.

Alone, the Adeptus Astartes are among the deadliest fighters in the galaxy or beyond. Together, they are invincible.

To survive the madness that flows through the burst veins of the _Emperor’s Will_ they can be nothing less.


End file.
